Could this new parenting therapy improve a child's autism?

Around 700,000 people in the UK have autism, that's about one child in every 100, and if you include their families, autism touches the lives of 2.8 million people every day. Now scientists say they have established the first long-term successful treatment, which is being described as "pretty remarkable" by experts, after training mums and dads the skills to become 'super parents' and teaching them how best to respond to their needs.

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The study, by The Preschool Autism Communication Trial (PACT), and carried out by researchers at Manchester University, Newcastle University, and King's College London (KCL) and published in the Lancet, has shown that parents of children with autism may be able to work with them from a young age to help reduce the severity of their symptoms and improve their ability to communicate.

The trial, which tracked 152 families for six years, looked at children after their diagnosis between the ages of two to four. Half the families were given intensive training on how to be 'super parents', watching films of themselves playing with their child while a therapist gave precise tips for helping their child communicate and providing them with feedback to better understand their child's attempt to communicate.

Over 12 sessions, parents were given homework to spend 20 to 30 minutes a day in planned communication with their kids following the guidance, with support sessions for a further six months.

The researchers hoped that the training could improve parenting skills to improve the social skills of the child. Dr Catherine Aldred, a consultant speech and language therapist at Manchester who worked on the trial, stressed that it wasn't about blaming parents.

"We're taking the parent's interaction with the child and taking it to a 'super' level, these children need more than 'good enough', they need something exceptional."

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The study then revisited the families almost six years after the end of the trial, to see whether there had been a long-term impact. Among these, 55% of the children were severely autistic at the beginning and 46% after six years. The other half of the tracked families, who were not given any coaching, showed that the number of children suffering from severe symptoms rose from 50 to 63% after six years.

The report's lead author, Prof Jonathan Green from the University of Manchester, said the results were "extraordinary". He added:

"This is not a 'cure', in the sense that the children who demonstrated improvements will still show remaining symptoms".

Professor Uta Frith, Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development at UCL, said it is a remarkably positive story, because the intervention itself was neither intensive nor invasive.

"There were improvements on a range of measures, but the effects were not dramatic and they were very variable across the group. We are still a long way from individualised programmes that might produce lasting behavioural improvements in all autistic children. In the meantime, we can hold on to the finding that improvements over time did occur even in those who only had 'treatment as usual'."

"This study is the first to find a sustained improvement of this kind. We welcome these results at the National Autistic Society, which show the positive impact of parents' early involvement in their children's therapy. Families are often on a steep learning curve after diagnosis about how to best support their autistic children. This study confirms our view that parents must be helped to understand their child's autism, so they can be properly involved in decisions and in support and interventions for their child. The researchers also put improving the everyday lives of autistic children and their families at the centre of this study. We hope to see more research with this same focus, which promises to improve the way clinicians work with families and, ultimately, improve life for thousands of autistic children

The researchers have pointed out that the trial used is rarely funded by the NHS and it should be offered more widely, with Professor Green saying:

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